Rye, East Sussex

Rye is a Cinque Port the sea walked out on, and the town has been dining out on the breakup for seven hundred years. Mermaid Street belongs to the photographers by mid-morning, and the smugglers who once plotted in the Mermaid Inn would admire the prices. Most of Rye lives down the hill, outside the postcard, in the houses the day-trippers walk past to get to it.